


Take A Punch

by Gildedmuse



Series: 11 Painful Partings [1]
Category: Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, I Am Joe's Complete Lack Of Beta Reading, Mental Breakdown, Multiple Personalities, Niche Fandom Fic, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Everytime you question which one of you is real, take a punch.





	Take A Punch

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to LJ in 2009 as part of an attempt to do a "12 Days Of Fandom" challenge. The first part was 12 Drunken Drabbles. Each of the 11 story is a different fandom but has a similar theme: Painful Partings]

**Take A Punch**

I am Joe's….

I am...  
  
I am what, exactly?  
  
Tyler is gone, dead. Can a person who never really lived die? He must have because Tyler is gone but his ghost is everywhere. I catch him watching me out of blackened eyes. One look at their split lips tells you who they are, where they spend their nights. One look at bruised arms, stitched up noses, they tell you more about a person than a years worth of conversation about what kind of furniture they’re thinking of buying.  
  
They look at me and they smile, and just like that I'm the one that's gone. Alive but not real. Those smiles? They're always meant for Tyler.  
  
I am Joe's half assed existence.  
  
Every time you feel like only half a man, take a punch.  
  
Tyler is dead. I can feel myself trying to scream it out but my throat is still a fucked up mess. Tyler never existed at all. There is no Tyler, no project mayhem, no oncoming revolution. He is the imaginary friend of an imaginary boy who spent so much time being cuddled by his mother he forgot how to be a man so had to make one up. Tyler is the man that all men want to be, but can't because there's no Tyler.

There is only Joe's mental breakdown.

If Tyler is nothing, what am I? I created the perfect man. I played God. The creator of a more perfect Adam, one that would have taken that damn tree and burned the whole thing down just to spite his own maker.

I am God, I tell myself, the all powerful.

Only it doesn’t feel true. Instead I feel half empty. Instead I feel incomplete. All their looks and nods, they only remind me that someone is missing.  
  
I am Joe's physical presence, but not really.  
  
To the devote I will never be anything less than their savior. I am the holy trinity. Creator and savior and fucked up ghost that travels behind them, scaring the shit out of people with a small look. They don’t know that this isn’t who I am, that Tyler is gone and left in his place is this weak, pathetic form that would rather be buying the latest dresser from Ikea or hiding out in a cancer meeting.  
  
Every time they call you Tyler, take a punch.  
  
“I am Jack's sense of self.” Look in the mirror and repeat that a few times, until you believe it. Only you can’t, because your reflection turns it’s lips up and smirks at you just like _he_ use to. Only it isn’t him, it’s you. Or maybe it is him, and you aren’t you.  
  
Tyler is dead. Tyler is gone. Tyler can never ever come back.  
  
I should have never made him. He was a bad creation, a mistake. God made Lucifer, I made Tyler. Only without Lucifer, God knows he’s just be fucking boring and no one would have loved him. They only love him because of what he isn’t. They only love him because of what they are, of what I am. No one needs me, but everyone needs Tyler. Tyler’s guidance and rules and sense of right and wrong that aren’t really senses at all.  
  
He’s gone, and I can hardly think anymore, can’t ever sleep because he’s hunting me like a bad fuck. Trying to figure out what I did wrong, only maybe I didn’t do anything wrong at all. Maybe I can’t stop thinking about him for other reasons.  
  
Every time you feel like Tyler’s bitch, that’s just how much you miss the bastard, every time you lay awake at night staring at the dripping ceiling and wondering where your imaginary friend went, take a punch.   
  
Punch until your knuckles bleed and the guy’s nose can never be put right. Punch and claw and kick, but it won’t make the memories go away.  
  
I am Tyler’s body and blood taking over Joe's, driving him out. And I am not stopping until he’s gone.


End file.
